


do i exist?

by Anonymous



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Disassociation, Insomnia, Self-Harm, sorry dongho you got wacked with the angst stick today, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27924625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: sure, he knows he’s physically there, laying on his bed in his room.but there’s so many versions of him by now.the one his parents want, the one the company wants, the one MAYHEM wants, the one the fans want-and he’s not quite sure if the version he wants exists anymore.
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld & Kang Dongho | D.Min & Kim Daehyun & Lee Minsoo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Anonymous





	do i exist?

Dongho’s cold. it’s midnight, and it’s winter, and he’s wearing shorts and a tank top and his tower fan is humming away in the corner, a cold breeze occasionally ruffling his messy hair.

_i really need to stop pulling at it._

god, he’s numb. he starts picking at a scab on his thigh absentmindedly, as he always does. he knows he should stop, but it’s strangely soothing and Dongho hates it. he hates waking up to find dried blood on his legs, he hates the pockmarked scars across his thighs, he hates the way that he. can’t. stop.

he hates the way that the only way he can seem to cope with anything is pain. tugging at his hair, digging his nails into his forearms, picking at scabs. it makes him so horribly numb and he hates it.

and yet he can’t bring himself to care about it. he can feel the strange little tell-tale _pop_ of a scab peeling, and the slight sting of the cold night air on the now-open skin, and yet he doesn’t care.

if anything it makes Dongho less and less aware of what’s happening. the buzz of the fan is white noise, the only thing keeping his room from being far too loudly quiet, and the fact that it’s pitch-black in his room, blackout curtains closed tightly over his windows, does nothing to change the fact that he sees everything through blue-tinted glasses. except for times like this, when he’s able to turn his brain off and drift for a while.

he’s not quite sure what he’s thinking about, if he’s hyperfocused on the sensation of his nails piercing under his skin or if he’s thinking of nothing at all.

suddenly he’s blinking and his fingertips feel oddly sticky-wet with blood and he still can’t care. he simply pulls a tissue from his bedside table and wipes at his hand and weakly tosses it off his bed.

his sheets are black. they won’t stain.

Dongho glances towards his phone, blinking at the light displaying from it. 2:09 am.

wearily, he flops back against his pillows again, not sparing his bedside table another glance. he doesn’t need to see the bottles piled up there, the empty supplements and prescriptions he took in the hopes that something would work, that anything could knock him out and spare him from having to lie awake in the dark for hours with only his thoughts and himself for company.

and as with every night, like clockwork, the question drifts across his mind for a second.

_do i exist?_

sure, he knows he’s physically there, lying on his bed in his room. but there’s so many versions of him by now. the one his parents want, the one the company wants, the one MAYHEM wants, the one the fans want-

and he’s not quite sure if the version he wants exists anymore.

the version that’s actually him.

the version of Kang Dongho where he laughs and has a deep, burning love for dance, for music, for someone he knows he could never be with ~~but he loves him anyway,~~ the version that sleeps and eats and functions like a normal human being without resorting to pain.

Dongho lies awake, eyes dragging themselves closed from tiredness and the cold wind from the fan blowing over the newly-forming scabs and he’s blissfully unaware of everything, his brain running a hundred miles an hour trying to think if he exists.

he doesn’t get an answer.

he snaps back to reality and he’s so so tired, borderline exhausted, and the spots on his legs ache and his eyelids are weighed down by sleep.

Dongho doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want to be plagued by nightmares and forced to wake up in the morning.

he wants to stay drifting in his blue-lit mind, to blink and have the sun be rising, to not have to suffer through whatever hell his unconscious brain puts him through tonight.

his eyes close anyway.


End file.
